Road to Vostok's hot start on Steam has "secured the entire production budget" the Finnish survival shooter needs for "years to come", dev says

The journey along its early access road's going well thus far

As noted in this week's Maw, the burgeoning genre of survival shooter which involve a lot of crouch-walking in fields got a new addition on Tuesday. Road to Vostok, a single player Tarkov-ish field-croucher solo developed by an ex-Finnish army officer arrived in early access following some popular demos. According to that former armyman, the early returns on its release have already helped set up the cash reserves its development will need for "years to come".

"The past 24 hours have been absolutely insane," developer Antti Leionen posted late yesterday. "Road to Vostok is currently Top Seller in many countries, front page on Steam and with [a] very positive rating. I will share some launch stats when I have gathered enough data (+ some sleep), but I can already say that the launch has been extremely successful for a solo dev and secured the entire production budget for this game for years and years to come."

As of writing, Steam's global top sellers list has Road to Vostok at 15, not far behind fellow new release Samson, while also nestled directly between Arc Raiders and the Resident Evil 4 remake. SteamDB, meanwhile, has it at 13, right behind Samson and just above GTA 5's enhanced edition. Perhaps unsurprisingly given where it's set, the game's all the way up at number two in Finland's top sellers list, trailing only perennial juggernaut Counter-Strike 2, while ahead of both PUBG: Battlegrounds and Crimson Desert.

That's some nice early momentum, and it'll be interesting to see whether Leionen can maintain it for the "approximately 2–4 years" he currently reckons the game about looting and shooting near the border between Finland and Russia will be in early access for. There's already an in-game roadmap you can check out via Road to Vostok's main menu or on its website if you're keen to see the sorts of additions currently in Leionen's plans.

For now, you start off in Area 05 - a bit of southeastern Finland plagued by bandits. Once you've got your survival sea legs there, things get tougher and more risky as you push across the border into Russia, where the "high-risk, high-reward zone" of Vostok awaits and permadeath kicks in. Leionen's aiming to have the full release contain about twice as much stuff as the initial early access version. More maps, traders, tasks, and weapons are all on the docket, as well as more "complex" undertakings like shelters you can share and mod support.

If you're keen to give Road to Vostok a go, it has a demo out on Steam.